Arkane Studios Founder Raphael Colantonio recently shared interesting details about the creation of Deathloop.
In a recent interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Colantonio revealed the reason for the creation of Deathloop. He said that it was actually developed by Bethesda and was not sure of a possible Dishonored 3. They wanted Arkane to pitch a small, more experimental project that would keep them busy while Bethesda would make up its mind about its next major game, which could have been Dishonored 3.
Turns out, Deathloop was a major hit.
“Bethesda wanted us to do something,” Colantonio said. “They didn’t quite know where we were going after Dishonored. ‘Do we want Dishonored 3? I don’t know, let’s make something simple and short before, and let’s see.’”
“And then [Deathloop] became a big thing, over the years,” he said. “That was the funny thing: ‘Nah, we don’t wanna do Dishonored 3, but if you can pitch us a small game, something that maybe has multiplayer so we can learn multiplayer, something that maybe has microtransactions, maybe something with a lot of recycling, like a roguelike.’”
Colantonio did say that Deathloop would have cost as much to make Dishonored 3. “But back then it was not meant to be.”
Deathloop is out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.